A False Alarm Or A Cover-Up? Olly Murs Opens Up On Black Friday Shooting Claims

He was attacked for causing panic when he thought he was being shot at.

More than four months after being ridiculed for his dramatic social media posts regarding a so-called shooting at Selfridges in London (that was later reported as a false alarm), Olly Murs is convinced that there's some kind of cover-up regarding the incident.

Olly Murs at 'The Voice' photocall

The 33-year-old was shopping in the department store on Black Friday last year when he experienced a flurry of terror among shoppers. As hundreds of customers evacuated the building, Olly found himself hidden in a small room believing that shots had been fired, though later it was declared that there was no danger.

'F**k everyone get out of Selfridges now gun shots! I'm inside', he wrote at the time. 'Really not sure what's happened! I'm in the back office... but people screaming and running towards exits! Evacuating store now! F**k heart is pounding.'

He later revealed: 'Being told no shots in Selfridges! Have no idea the whole store went crazy! I'm safe and in hotel with loads of people! So many different stories flying around just hope everyone is safe.'

It's was unclear what exactly Olly had experienced in the store, though it seemed his idea that shots had been fired came from staff and other customers rather than his own personal evaluation of the situation.

'Something happened that day', he insisted to The Sun. 'Whether it was covered up, I don't know. It's all a bit murky. I ran into an office after being told by the staff of Selfridges that someone was there with a gun. Whether they were shooting into the air, or whatever, something happened that day - whether it was covered up, I don't know.'

He'd been shopping for a Christmas present for his aunt at the time, and was consulting a salesperson about one particular gadget when all hell broke loose and he found himself bundling a group of around 20 people through a small office.

'One minute I'm sitting there and this guy's saying, 'If you press this button you get a massage' - the next I'm getting thrown against a wall', he recalled. 'And then there's people screaming and running towards exits and I'm thinking, 'What the f**k? I ran for my life thinking 'Someone's upstairs shooting.' The noise of people screaming, it was terrifying.'

There was even an apparent witness to the situation who joined Olly's evacuation team and claimed that she'd seen a man with a gun in the cosmetics section of the store. 'This woman said 'Someone was up there shooting, I could see him, in the beauty aisle he had a gun', said Olly.'

'This girl was saying 'Don't tell me I'm lying, I saw this guy with my own eyes'. Whether he shot someone or was shooting in the air - well, obviously he didn't shoot anyone - but someone saw something.'

At the time, Olly ended up in a Twitter spat with Piers Morgan, who criticised him for irresponsibly causing panic and alarm when in fact there was no evidence that anything had happened. 'It's easy to say now it was nothing but in a state of shock and panic I was trying to make people aware of what was happening', Olly responded. 'Which I was lend to believe by staff and customers that someone was shooting.'

It's not that Olly doesn't agree with the point Piers was making, but in the heat of the moment his only consideration was to help remove people from a potentially dangerous environment. 'Twitter is a place where you have to be careful what you say', he confessed. 'But my argument is I did exactly what the police say to do: Run, hide and tell.'